"Will displease: if you shew him better, the thickest wrinkle 215 "Is gathered on his forehead, as drawn by sour Falernan. "In the night, if haply care hath indulged a short sleep, "And his limbs tumbled over the whole bed now are quiet, "Immediately the temple, and the altars of the violated Deity, "And (what urges his mind with especial pains) Thee he sees in his sleep: thy sacred image, and bigger 220 "Than human, disturbs him fearful, and compels him to confess." "There are they who tremble, and turn pale at all lightnings “When it thunders: also lifeless at the first murmur of the heavens: "Not as if accidental, nor by rage of winds, but < Fire fall on the earth enraged, and may avenge.” may "That did no harm"--" the next tempest is fear'd With heavier concern, as if deferr'd by this fair weather. 225 223. "All lightnings," &c.] The poet proceeds in his description. of the miserable state of the wicked, and here represents them as filled with horror by thunder and lightning, and dreading the consequences. 224. "First murmur," &c.] They are almost dead with fear, on hearing the first rumbling in the sky. 225. "Not as if," &c.] They do not look upon it as happening fortuitously, by mere chance or accident, without any direction or intervention of the gods, like the Epicureans. See HoR. sat. v. lib. i. 1. 101-3. "Rage of winds."] Or from the violence of the winds, occasioning a collision of the clouds, and so producing the lightning, as the philosophers thought, who treated on the physical causes of lightning, as Pliny and Seneca. 226." Fire may fall," &c.] The wretch thinks that the flashes which he sees and dreads, will not confine their fury to the skies, but, armed with divine vengeance, may fall upon the earth, and destroy the guilty. 227. "That did no harm."] i. e. That last tempest did no mischief; it is now over and harmless :-" So far is well," thinks the unhappy wretch. "The next tempest," &t.] Though they escape the first storm, yet they dread the next still more, imagining that they have only had a respite from punishment, and therefore that the next will certainly destroy them. 228. " As if deferr'd," &c.] As if delayed by one fair day, on purpose, afterwards, to fall the heavier. This passage of Juvenal reminds one of that wonderfully fine speech, on a similar subject, which our great and inimitable poet, Shakespeare, has put into the mouth of king Lear, when turned out by his cruel and ungrateful daughters, and, on a desolate and barren. heath, is in the midst of a storm of thunder and lightning. Præterea lateris vigili cum febre dolorem Hæc, et tela putant: pecudem spondere sacello Cum scelus admittunt, superest constantia: quid fas, Find out their enemies now. Tremble thou wretch "Unwhipt of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; "Thou art incestuous: Caitiff, to pieces shake "Has practis'd on man's life! Close pent-up guilts, 230 235 240 LEAR, act iii. sc. i. 229. "Pain of the side," &c.] The poet seems here to mean a pleurisy, or pleuritic fever, a painful and dangerous distemper. "A watchful fever."] i. e. A fever which will not let them sleep, or take their rest. 230. "Begun to suffer," &c.] On the first attack of such a disor der, they believed themselves doomed to suffer the wrath of an offended Deity, of which their illness seems to them an earnest. 232. "Stones and darts."] These were, weapons of war among the ancients when they attacked a place, they threw, from engines for that purpose, huge stones to batter down the wall, and darts to annoy the besieged. Here the poet uses the words in a metaphorical sense, to denote the apprehension of the sick criminal, who thinks himself, as it were, besieged by an offended Deity, who employs the pleurisy and fever, as his artillery, to destroy the guilty wretch. "To engage a bleating sheep," &c.] Or lamb-pecus may signify either. It was usual for persons in danger, or in sickness, to engage by vow some offering to the gods, on their deliverance, or recovery; but the guilty wretches here mentioned, are supposed to be in a state of utter despair, so that they dare not so much as hope for recovery, and therefore have no courage to address any vows to the gods. 233. Comb of a cock," &c.] So far from promising a cock to Esculapius, they have not the courage to vow even a cock's comb, as a sacrifice to their household gods. 234. "Allowed the guilty, &c.] Such guilty wretches can be al "Moreover a pain of the side with a watchful fever, "If they have begun to suffer, they believe the disease sent “To their bodies by some hostile deity: they think these things "The stones and darts of the gods: to engage a bleating sheep "To the little temple, and to promise the comb of a cock to the 230 "Lares "They dare not; for what is allowed the guilty sick "To hope for? or what victim is not more worthy of life? 235 "The nature of wicked men is, for the most part, fickle, and change ❝able ; "When they commit wickedness, there remains constancy: what is "right "And what wrong, at length they begin to perceive, their crimes 66 Being finish'd but nature recurs to its damned : "Morals, fix'd, and not knowing to be changed. For who 240 lowed no hope whatever their own consciences tell them as much. 235. "Is not more worthy," &c.] i. e. Does not more deserve to live than they. 236. "Fickle and changeable."] i. c. Wavering and uncertain, at first before they commit crimes, they are irresolute, and doubting whether they shall or not, and often change their mind, which is in a fluctuating state. 237. "Remains constancy."] When they have once engaged in evil actions, they become resolute. "What is right," &c.] After the crime is perpetrated, they begin to reflect on what they have done they are forcibly stricken with the difference between right and wrong, insomuch that they feel, for a while, a remorse of conscience; but notwithstanding this 239. "Nature recurs," &c.] Their evil nature will return to its corrupt principles, and silence all remorse; fixed and unchangeable in this respect, it may be said-Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret. HOR. lib. i. epist. x. 1. 24. 241. "Hath laid down to himself," &c.] What wicked man ever contented himself with one crime, or could say to his propensity to wickedness, "hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther," when every crime he commits hardens him the more, and plunges him still deeper?-See sat. ii. 1, 83, note. "When recover'd," &c.] No man ever yet recovered a sense of shame, who had once lost it. 242. "Worn forehead," &c.] Attritus signifies rubbed or worn away, as marble, or metals, where an hard and polished surface remains; so a wicked man, by frequent and continual crimes, grows hardened against all impressions of shame, of which the forehead is often represented as the seat. See Jer. iii. 3, latter part. Quisnam hominum est, quem tu contentum videris uno Flagitio? dabit in laqueum vestigia noster Perfidus, et nigri patietur carceris uncum, Aut maris Ægæi rupem, scopulosque frequentes Nec surdum, nec Tiresiam quenquam esse Deorum. 245 243. "Who is there," &c.] Who ever contented himself with sinning but once, and stopped at the first fact? 244. "Our perfidious wretch," &c.] Noster perfidus, says Juvenal, meaning the villain who had cheated Calvinus, and then perjured himself. As if the poet had said-Don't be so uneasy, Calvinus, at the loss of your money, or so anxious about revenging yourself upon the wretch who has perjured you; have a little patience, he won't stop here, he'll go on from bad to worse, till you will find him sufficiently punished, and yourself amply avenged. 244-5. “Into a snare."] He'll do something or other which will send him to gaol, and load him with fetters. Or he will walk into a snare (comp. Job, xviii 8-10.) and be entangled in his own devices. 245. "Suffer the hook," &c.] The uncus was a drag, or hook, by which the bodies of malefactors were dragged about the streets after execution. See sat. x. 1. 66. But, by this line, it should seem as if some instrument of this sort was made use of, either for torture, or closer confinement in the dungeon. 246. "Rock of the Egean sea."] Or, if he should escape the gallows, that he will be banished to some rocky, barren island in the Ægean sea, where he will lead a miserable life. Perhaps the island Seriphus is here meant. See sat. vi. 563, 245 "Who is there of men, whom you have seen content with one "Base action? our perfidious wretch will get his feet into "A snare, and will suffer the hook of a dark prison, "Or a rock of the Ægean sea, and the rocks frequent "To great exiles. You will rejoice in the bitter punishment “Of his hated name, and at length, glad will confess, that no one of "The gods, is either deaf, or a Tiresias." 246. "The rocks frequent," &c.] The rocky islands of the Cyclades, (see sat. vi. 562, note.) to which numbers were banished, and frequently, either by the tyranny of the emperor, or through their own crimes, persons of high rank. 247. "You will rejoice," &c.] You, Calvinus, will at last triumph over the villain that has wronged you, when you see the bitter sufferings, which await him, fall upon him. 248. "His hated name."] Which will not be mentioned, but with the utmost detestation and abhorrence. -"At length-confess."] However, in time past, you may have doubted of it, you will in the end joyfully own- 248-9. "That no one of the gods," &c.] Whose province it is to punish crimes, is either deaf, so as not to hear such perjury, or blind, so as not to see every circumstance of such a transaction, and to punish it accordingly. Comp. l. 112—19. 249. "Tiresias." A blind soothsayer of Thebes, fabled to be stricken blind by Juno, for his decision in a dispute between her and her husband, in favour of the latter, who in requital gave him the gift of prophecy. END OF THE THIRTEENTH SATIRE. |